The Hidden Reality

by Brian Greene (Knopf; $29.95)

This often mind-stretching survey distills research in such fields as cosmology, quantum mechanics, and string theory that has yielded variations on a similar idea: that our universe, once thought to be singular and all-encompassing, may be just one of many, perhaps innumerably many. Within this formulation, Greene writes, lies the dizzying possibility that “there are many perfect copies of you out there in the cosmos.” Greene, a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, tempers his enthusiasm with a skeptic’s patient calm, noting the “highly speculative” nature of parallel-universe models that suggest potentially non-testable physical realities. Novices may occasionally be stymied by notions of size and time that defy easy analogy—“Is three times infinity larger than plain old infinity?”—but those who persist will take seriously Greene’s impassioned argument for “the capacity of mathematics to reveal secreted truths about the workings of the world.” ♦

This article appears in the print edition of the March 21, 2011, issue.

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